A man who was raised in Nanaimo and lived out his post-war life in Lantzville was a key figure in one of the most famous stories to come out of the Second World War.
On April 12, 1943, flying officer John Colwell, a young RCAF navigator, disembarked from the railway station in Sagan, Germany, and was escorted down the road to Stalag Luft III, a German prisoner of war camp. It was a new camp, surrounded by a pine forest, which made the it feel closed in, with no view to the outside world.
Colwell looked over the compound and noticed the two high fences, topped with barbed wire, and armed guard towers. Inside the fences was a low warning wire. Any prisoner caught beyond it could be shot. Colwell was assigned to Hut 120, Room 14, one of 16 single-storey huts, each housing 144 prisoners in the prison’s north compound. It was a sparse room with bunks, straw mattresses, and little heat. This would be home for the foreseeable future.
Colwell was born in India in 1916. His father, a missionary, had served as a doctor in the First World War. In 1933, his father moved the family to Nanaimo and took up farming. Colwell attended school in Nanaimo and worked on the farm after completing high school. Colwell joined the RCAF and, given his strong background in mathematics, was trained as an air observer. He took his first flight in 1941 and completed gunnery and bombing training in Moose Jaw, Sask.
Colwell, now a sergeant, arrived in England in May 1942, completed more training in navigation and reported to 404 RCAF Squadron in Yorkshire, which was involved in bombing raids on Stuttgart and Essen, Germany, and the U-Boat pens in St. Nazaire, France.
On a mission on April 3, 1943, Colwell’s Halifax bomber was shot down by a German night fighter. He bailed out – his parachute saved his life, earning him membership in the Caterpillar Club, an association of people who have parachuted out of disabled aircraft – and landed near Rotterdam.
At Stalag Luft III, Colwell learned quickly that, to get home, self-preservation was important – two things were clear, getting along with his roommates, and securing food – and he kept a secret diary about life in the camp, complete with daily entries, illustrations of camp living, lists of Red Cross parcels, menus, theatre performances and even diagrams of the escape tunnels. In June 1944, Colwell wrote, “Two Americans got under the south fence along the new road … 33 walked out the main gate disguised as a delousing party and escaped … but were caught.”
The original copy of the diary, which has become an important historical document, is on display in the Comox Air Museum. Colwell’s diary provided accurate historical details about the prison and tunnels for the 1963 film The Great Escape.
One of the prisoners, Roger Bushell, nicknamed ‘Big X,’ hatched a sophisticated plan to dig three tunnels, named Tom, Dick and Harry, to break out over 200 Commonwealth prisoners, complete with forged documents, civilian clothing, rations, maps, and compasses. The ‘X’ organization put together a team of tunnel men, forgers, scroungers, tailors, and ‘penguins.’
Colwell recorded in his diary that he “noticed one day that two prisoners … came along and sort of scuffed along in the middle of our game. I remember thinking it wasn’t very considerate of them … and then I saw the sand trickling out of their pant legs and realized what was going on.” Colwell joined the penguins distributing sand dug from the tunnels around the compound.
Colwell had a knack for fabricating almost anything and, using discarded cans, made pots, compasses, sandbags, kettles and even a working clock, which earned him the nickname the Tin Man. One of his roommates, fellow RCAF officer Art Hartwin, commented, “He could make anything out of anything. There were 12 of us moved into a bigger room. There wasn’t anything in the room when we got there. Seven o’clock the next morning he rounded up all the tin cans he could, and we had every utensil we needed within a week. He was a master tinker.”
Colwell’s contribution earned him a place among the 200 men chosen to take part in the escape attempt. On March 24, he wrote, “Jamie and I spent the night in Block 104 in preparation to go out the tunnel. Our turns were 146 and 147. The tunnel was broken at 10 p.m. Unfortunately, after the 76th man’s escape, the tunnel was discovered. I awoke about 5:15 a.m. to learn the tunnel had been found. Two Goons were in the hut with their dogs. I burned all my papers … and threw all my chocolates and food out the window … At 6:30 we were taken outside, counted, strip-searched individually.”
The tunnel discovery may have saved his life. Of 76 men who escaped, three got away, 50 were executed by the Germans and the remainder were returned to the camp.
With the Russian army advancing in January 1945, the German guards forced the prisoners on a months-long winter march west across Germany with little food and clothing. On May 2, Colwell wrote, “Goons deserting, tanks arrived at noon – free.”
Colwell returned to the Island after the war, married Fern Rodger, settled in Extension and took up dairy farming. He became active in the Scout movement and and also an active rock hound. In 1974, the Colwells donated land and scrounged the materials to build a clubhouse for hobby lovers. The non-profit group which operated the program named it Jonanco Hobby Workshop (John and Company) on White Rapids Road in Extension – a place where crafters can access tools, workspace, storage, and expertise to build everything from furniture to jewelry. His legacy is still active today and a real tribute to Colwell who died in 2007.
Military museum’s librarian excited to re-tell ‘Great Escape’ story
When good stories get re-discovered, they’re often worth re-telling.
Greg Devenish, Vancouver Island Military Museum librarian and board member, is a contributing writer for the VIMM newsletter, so he’s always on the hunt for story ideas about events and people connected to the Island’s and especially Nanaimo’s military history.
“The museum’s about Canadian military history with a Nanaimo bent … You’re not going to find McArthur and Patton in here,” Devenish said.
While researching a recent article, Devenish came across information about John Colwell, an RCAF flight lieutenant whose Halifax bomber was shot down in 1943. Colwell played a key role in helping 76 men escape from a German prisoner of war camp in 1944. The story was popularized by the 1963 Hollywood film The Great Escape, which drew upon Colwell’s diary secretly chronicling daily life and detailing the tools and methods used to tunnel more than 100 metres underground.
Excerpts from Colwell’s diary have been included in numerous accounts about the great escape, but some of the most recent articles about him were published more than 20 years ago and many people today are unaware a key figure in one of the Second World War’s most famous stories was from Nanaimo. The Vancouver Island Military Museum has a copy of Colwell’s diary – the original is displayed at the Comox Air Force Museum – that had been stashed away in one of the museum’s document storage room along with information written in the 1990s or possibly earlier by former museum volunteer Harold Johnstone.
“[He] was interested in people from Nanaimo,” said Devenish, who happened upon Colwell’s name while reading The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, a 2013 book by Ted Barris, and recalled the name from the the documents in the back room alongside ship and aircraft logbooks. “I got the connection and the light went on. I thought, maybe we’ve got something here.”
Devenish, fascinated by escape stories since he was a kid, has written other articles about the core group of men involved with the escape who referred to the project simply as ‘X.’
Devenish bristles at the inaccuracies of The Great Escape movie, which depicted American airmen as the main characters and not Commonwealth aircrew, many of whom were Canadians.
“I had seen The Great Escape as a kid. I was enthralled with it. I thought all that was true,” he said. “And of course, later as I did more research and you end up reading more, you find out Steve McQueen did not have a motorbike, there were no Americans in the Great Escape, and then [Barris’s] book came out … I knew a fair bit, but didn’t understand the extent of the Canadian contribution.”
The Jonanco Hobby Workshop on White Rapids Road in Extension was created with land donated and building materials gathered by Colwell and his wife, Fern.
“That’s his legacy. It’s not the escape. He gave,” Devenish said. “That’s what’s incredible about these guys. This guy provides a moral compass to us all about resilience and giving back … This is moral compass stuff and every kid should know about this guy in Nanaimo, because he gave back and he didn’t ask for anything.”
chris.bush@nanaimobulletin.com
